


A Longitudinal Examination of Vulpes Crystallum (Interrupted by Poe Dameron)

by SassySnowperson



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (not a mad scientist there's an important distinction there), Angry Scientist, Crystal Foxes (Star Wars), Excerpts of In-Universe Academic Documents, F/M, Poe Dameron vs The Ecological Fallout of Running a War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27918565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassySnowperson/pseuds/SassySnowperson
Summary: …the data collected in year four of the study were influenced by unique environmental pressures when off-planet migration introduced variations in the sonic environment. The researcher attempted to control for these variations by…
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Naturalist Just Trying to Study Crystal Foxes, Poe Dameron/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 33
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	A Longitudinal Examination of Vulpes Crystallum (Interrupted by Poe Dameron)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syrena_of_the_lake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/gifts).



> Syrena_of_the_lake, I had so much fun throwing Poe Dameron and this scientist together, thank you very much for the prompts that let me do just that! 
> 
> ~
> 
> Before we begin, a word about fox names. So, you may know that the apparently official Star Wars word for the crystal foxes are Vulptices. However...everybody I know just calls them the Crystal Foxes. So I've made the executive decision that the Star Wars Universe uses that as the colloquial name for the animals too.

#### 

Predation and Scavenging in Low Prey-Density Ecological Neighborhoods: A Longitudinal Examination of the Hunting Patterns of Vulpes Crystallum

###### 

Zivya C. Kaer

##### Abstract
    
    
    The planet Crait's unique mineral composition (1) and primarily subterranean water sources (2) has resulted in a low-density ecological network on the planet's surface. While the majority of the planet's unique species remain underground (3),  there remains some species that live primarily on the planet's surface or hybridize between surface and subterranean dwelling (4). The carnivorous and omnivorous species of this environment display unique hunting adaptations. Analysis of these adaptations in vulpes crystallum using a seven-year longitudinal method…
    
    …the data collected in year four of the study were influenced by unique environmental pressures when off-planet migration introduced variations in the sonic environment. The researcher attempted to control for these variations by… 

* * *

"And I'm telling you, I don't _care_ if you're the Chosen Harbinger of the Fifth Degree Angels, you need to turn your beacon _off._ "

Poe looked up to find a nervous recruit standing in the doorway of the comms hub. "Um, Commander, we've got a bit of an issue." 

"I can hear that," Poe said, standing up and leaning over her shoulder, trying to figure out what was causing all the yelling. "What's going on?" 

"Some sort of, um, visitor." 

"We're on Crait, we don't have visitors," Poe pointed out. "And she sounds very angry. First Order?"

"No, a…scientist?" The recruit sounded unsure.

Poe cocked his head. "Huh." 

"Yeah, could you, um, talk to her? She's figured out we don't really want to shoot civilians, so our threats aren't working anymore." 

Poe ran his fingers through his hair. He looked over at the communication's board. He was getting tired of monitoring the signal anyway. "Sure, sure, let me just…grab…" Poe found his jacket and shrugged it on, and made sure his blaster was secure in his hip holster. They really didn't want to shoot civilians, but could anyone showing up in the middle of an isolated military base _really_ be considered a civilian? 

Poe rounded the corner to find a human woman dressed in rugged outerwear, her black hair back in a practical braid. Her hands were tucked firmly in the pockets of a beat up leather jacket and the hems of her canvas pants were stained with reddened salt. Her sturdy boots carried the same layering of salt. So she had been on Crait for a while, and she knew how to dress for the environment. 

Her eyes flew up and she glared at Poe. "Are you in charge here?" she snapped. 

"I'm Commander Dameron, and yes, I am," Poe said easily. 

"Whatever that broadcast, _beacon_ , whatever it is you've got going on, you need to shut it down." Her dark brown eyes flicked over to the nearest console, like she was considering breaking loose from the ring of guards around her and smashing it off herself. 

"Okay," Poe said. "I've got some questions for you first, miss. Like who are you, and have you even realized you're in the middle of a military outpost?" Poe gestured around exasperatedly. 

"I'm _Doctor_ ," she put a sharp emphasis on the word, "Kaer, and first I'd like to know who do you think _you_ are? I've been studying the wildlife on this planet for four years and then you lot come tromping in. Nice battle, by the way, I'm still documenting all the mess that left on the ecological neighborhood. But that was a one-time event, its impact _can_ be documented and accounted for."

"You were…here for the battle?" Poe blinked. They hadn't picked up any signs of transmission when they scanned the planet. 

"My main survey sight is pretty far away. I didn't really know what was going on until after it happened." Dr. Kaer caught herself, and looked around. "I'm sorry, I'm sure you lost people, I don't mean to be insensitive to that. But that's not why I'm here. I'm _here_ because your burst transmission beacon needs to get turned off. Now."

Poe rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this straight, _Doctor_. You became aware of a massive battle on the surface of the planet, and your reaction is to march straight into the one remaining base and start issuing demands?" 

Dr. Kaer gave a little shrug. "I didn't want to. I'd prefer to have just ignored you and written you up as a footnote in my research. But I can't do that. Vulpes crystallum. You're killing them." Looking around, Poe could see he wasn't the only one who didn't understand. After a minute, she clarified, "You're killing the crystal foxes." 

* * *

All of Poe's attempted explanations—no, they weren't hunters, and maybe some foxes had gotten in the way of the battle, but Poe found that pretty unlikely since they were good at running for cover—had no effect on Dr. Kaer. Which was how Poe found himself riding passenger in Dr. Kaer's little speeder, heading back over to her observation camp. 

He didn't have to go. Obviously. But he was getting pretty bored of monitoring the comms hub. It was important work, the beacon on Crait could transmit messages further and more effectively than any other tool the Resistance had access to at the moment. Someone high up in the chain of command had to be around to coordinate until they could get another communication base set up. That didn't change the fact that it was boring, tedious work, and Poe felt justified in taking a break. 

Besides, Dr. Kaer was passionate, angry, and intelligent nearly to the point of arrogance. Poe found it oddly compelling. He wanted to know more. 

They pulled up to Dr. Kaer's small base. It was almost more of a campsite. The main building was a collapsible habitation with a transmitter on the roof and a levi-hitch that could attach to the speeder. Her worksite must move around. Made sense, if the foxes moved, she'd need to move too. Dr. Kaer hopped out of the landspeeder and gestured for Poe to follow inside. 

The inside of her little base was cozy. Crammed in one corner were all the little nods to human needs: a cot, a tiny cooking stove, and a tiny 'fresher cubby. The rest of the building was filled to the brim with scientific instruments: visual monitors, radar, some sort of a seismograph, and shelves full of specimen jars filled with oddly refracting stones. 

"What are these?" Poe asked, tapping a jar. 

"Feces," Dr. Kaer responded with a wry smile. "See the little bones? Local rodent. Good hunting day for them."

"Ah," Poe said. He pulled his hand away and tucked it in his pocket. "Fascinating."

"Spoken like a true scientist. Come here, here's what you need to understand." Dr. Kaer started pointing at different monitors and talking quickly, "We're in the mid-summer hunting cycle now. This is the time that is critical to building up the crystalline deposits and organic reserves needed to preserve the vulpes crystallum through the winter months. I estimate based on spectromic readings…" 

She fell into highly technical jargon, but Poe could follow from her gestures and the occasional understandable word that she was worried the foxes weren't getting enough food to survive the winter. He could see a few of them on the screen, bouncing around and looking fairly hale and hearty. He couldn't see the issue. 

"Okay, but what does that have to do with our beacon?" 

"You'll see, ah, good timing. We're just on time for your beacon's data transfer." 

Poe looked at the clock. "You've timed our data bursts?" He had an uneasy prickle in his neck as he thought about base security.

"It's almost impossible _not_ to, if you're observing the foxes. Watch this output." She tapped something Poe had thought was a seismograph, but upon closer inspection seemed calibrated to electromagnetic waves. Right as the data burst went through, the monitor went haywire, spiked lines shooting up and down. 

Dr. Kaer made a distressed noise. Poe didn't think it was intentional, because when he looked at her, she was looking at the visual monitors of the crystal foxes. Poe followed her gaze, and his heart caught in his throat. 

The crystal foxes didn't look fine now. They were sprawled out flat on the ground, or walking around in circles, stumbling over their paws. It was like they had lost all sense of direction. 

"It'll take them about an hour to recover," Dr. Kaer said, her voice still tight with pain. "And, as I'm sure you're aware, you send data bursts out—"

"Once every three hours," Poe finished for her. He rubbed his hands over his face. 

"And receive incoming less often, every five hours or so. That's less consistent. The incoming doesn't affect them as badly, but they are still losing well over forty percent of their waking hours to this incapacitation." She gestured at the screen. "If it stops now, they'll have enough time in the season to make up the caloric intake and still mature appropriate defensive crystalline structures. So your beacon needs to come down." 

"It's not that easy," Poe said, wincing as she whirled on him, looking absolutely furious. Poe held up his hands. "Look! This is one of the only comms centers we have! And I definitely should not be telling you that because of operational security! But if this beacon goes down it puts sapient lives at stake. Many of them. We're fighting the First Order. You know what they did to Hosnia." 

Dr. Kaer waved her hand in a short, sharp jerk. "Of course I know what they did to Hosnia. One of the finest libraries of biological science was on Hosnia! Countless knowledge, research, lost! Friends and colleagues, too." She added that last bit almost as an afterthought. No, not quite. There was real pain there. More like sharing it didn't come easily. 

"So you see what we're doing here, right?" Poe asked. 

"Yes," Dr. Kaer said crisply, waving at the monitors. "All too well. I know how you military types think. All about acceptable losses and sacrifices." 

"No!" Poe protested, thinking of ships burning for no good reason, thinking of the high price paid to get them even this far. "That's not—maybe that's who the First Order is, but that's not who _we_ are. There is no acceptable loss." 

Dr. Kaer took a step closer, so she was well inside Poe's reach. Her eyes glittered as she fixed him with a ferocious glare. "Then help me _save_ them," she demanded. "There's got to be a way to stop this." 

Poe gave a rough exhale as he turned away from the doctor and back to the monitors. "Okay, maybe there's a way for us both to get what we need. What, _exactly_ , are the foxes reacting to?" 

* * *

It took her two hours just to explain what the problem was, as well as she understood it. Poe commed back to the base and let them know that he was fine mid-way through, and then again once the explanation was finished, to get an engineer on the line. Thirty minutes after that, they packed back into the landspeeder again and drove back to the Resistance base, because things were getting too technical to address over the phone. 

"You really sure we should be showing her our engineering specs?" One of the young officers asked. 

It was a reasonable question. 

"No," Poe shrugged. "But I really don't think she cares about anything other than the foxes. It's a risk I'm willing to take." 

He didn't have too much to add to the discussion once Dr. Kaer really got going with the mechanic team. It turned out that in order to do her specialized research into the foxes she had basically picked up an honorary degree in the electromagnetic spectrum and another in geology. Poe decided since all this was clearly out of his league, the best thing he could do was go into their base's little kitchen and make sure everyone was fed and well-caffeinated. 

To his amusement, Dr. Kaer grabbed the caf and downed it in one swift chug, and proceeded to keep troubleshooting engineering solutions and ignoring the food. This went on for another forty minutes before Poe, exhausted just watching her, grabbed her elbow and pointed at the food. "Eat." 

She blinked at him, surprised. She sort of tilted her head, and Poe would bet good credits that she had picked the gesture up from the foxes she had studied. She looked over to the plate of food, then gave Poe a little nod, and started eating.

"Miss a lot of meals?" Poe asked, sitting down next to her. 

She shot him an irritated glare. "I maybe get caught up sometimes." 

Poe nodded, then turned his attention back toward the schematics laid out in front of him. "Alright, what have we got so far." 

"Well, sir, it seems likely that we can run a…neutralizing signal at the same time we do the data bursts. Basically, the same noise, but reversed, and it should flatten the wave out so it doesn't impact the foxes."

"There's some negligible signal degradation with that plan," the comms tech chimed in. "But honestly, it'll be a security improvement, harder for anyone nearby to pull our info. Sending all the local wildlife into a tizzy every time we send a message isn't really ideal for operational security, anyway." 

"And what's the cost?" Poe asked.

"We've got the equipment we need. But in order to safely install the mechanics for the counter-signal and make sure it's working, we'll probably have to go dark for about twelve hours." 

Poe winced. "That's long enough to put some of our current teams in danger." 

He slid a sideways look over at Dr. Kaer. She was chewing stiffly, with a mulish look on her face. 

Poe turned back to the team. "Give me twenty-four hours. That'll be enough time to get our current operations to ground or to find alternate communications. This has been going on for a couple months now, I doubt another day will make a significant impact to the foxes?" He raised an eyebrow at Dr. Kaer, asking for confirmation. 

She looked over at him, surprised, and gave a slow nod. "They can handle a day." 

"Alright, great! I'll go break the news to command, and let them know that Dr. Kaer is to be commended for identifying and bringing to our attention such a vital weakness in our communications system. I may even be able to wrangle a contractors bonus for you." 

"I—well, a researcher certainly never turns down additional funding," Dr. Kaer said, stumbling over the words slightly. She still looked surprised. 

Poe winked at her, then went to go give Leia the bad news. It went better than he expected, and he had a nice contractors fee to give to Dr. Kaer along with the news that their installation plan was given the green light to go-ahead. "Would you mind staying here for the day and weigh in on the install?" Poe asked as he passed the credits over. "I'd like to have your eyes on it." 

"Oh! Um, yes. My instruments will continue to collect data, they don't need my supervision. It will be good to know what's going on so I can document it in my methodology, vaguely enough that it won't give away any military secrets, of course. Though, if it does become unclassified, the spectrum involved leads to some interesting implications for—what are you doing?" 

"You're exhausted," Poe diagnosed, tugging again at her elbow and encouraging her to her feet. "And rambling. So I'm going to show you your bunk, and then I'm going to wrangle up some pajamas for you. 'Fresher comes with the full soni-cleaner, including dental. Need anything else?" 

"Oh, um, no," she said, and let Poe lead her down the hallway. "Not that I can think of." 

"Good, good. Here's your room. I'll be back in a minute with some pajamas." Poe tucked her through the door and leaned in, diagnosing the dust-level of the unused room. Not awful, but it could be better. "And some fresh sheets. See you soon." 

Poe rustled up the supplies and returned to the room to find the door closed. He tucked his bundle of cloth under one arm and knocked on the door. "Delivery!" he called. 

He considered putting it on the ground and leaving, but the hallway wasn't the cleanest. If he was going through the trouble of finding fresh bedding, he didn't want to cover it in a layer of...whatever was on the floor. They really needed to get a cleaning droid in here. 

After a moment, the door opened, and Dr. Kaer stepped aside to gesture him in. Poe stepped inside. "Everything looking okay?" he asked. 

"Yes," she said quietly, reaching to take the cloth bundle. "Nicer than where I usually sleep."

"Not a high bar," Poe opined with a grin. "Okay, kitchen is open all the time, but there's no staff, so just help yourself if you get munchy…" He drummed his fingernails against the wall, trying to think if there was anything else. "I think that's about it! I'm up the hall if you need anything, have a good—" 

The Dr. Kaer reached forward and grabbed his wrist. "Wait." 

Poe paused, looking over at her. "Yes?"

Her jaw worked a couple times, before she finally said, "Thank you. I didn't say—I know you had no real reason to listen to me. Or even care about vulpes crystallum. But you did anyway. So. Thank you." 

Poe felt himself smiling as he looked at her. "I should be thanking you. We've been at war a long time, and it's easy to forget how…big the galaxy is. How much room there is for knowledge. How much there is to appreciate and protect. I appreciate the reminder." 

She swallowed hard, and smiled up at him. Poe had to fight down an inappropriate thought that she really was very beautiful, now that she wasn't yelling at him. Aw, heck, Poe had enough self-awareness to know that he found her very beautiful even when she _was_ yelling at him. But that didn't make it an okay thing to think, standing next to her in her bedroom. 

(Even if her hand was around his wrist, even if that grip sent shivers up through his elbow.) 

She kissed him. Poe froze, taking a long moment to even realize what was happening. Before he could really react she was pulling away, talking so fast it took Poe long, slow seconds to catch up to what she was saying.

"…know what I was thinking, I've been living by myself for _awhile_ now and I clearly have lost all sense of propriety, again, _so_ sorry, please consider this—oh!"

Poe laid a hand on her jaw and pulled her in for a kiss. He kept it fairly chaste, just a little peck before he drew back enough to whisper, "Don't apologize. Just caught me by surprise, that's all." He leaned in to kiss her again. 

It seemed to take her a moment to figure out where to put her hands. They flitted from his shoulders to his neck to his elbows and back to his shoulders again. Her lips, though, stayed warm and firm against his, and she gave a soft groan of contentment that Poe could almost taste. 

She pulled back again, but didn't go far, just far enough to say, "I feel I should inform you that I have had minimal contact with sapient species for the last few years and that may be impacting my judgment, but I very much want to drag you over to that bed and do a few things that might dirty the current sheets before we put the clean ones on." 

Poe's eyes widened. "I like the way you think," he breathed. A thought occurred to him, and he felt obliged to add, "I, uh, you should probably know that I'm not going to be stationed here for very long, so this isn't, a, um—" 

"Obviously," Dr. Kaer rolled her eyes and pulled back a little, brushing some hair away from Poe's forehead. "Don't worry, Commander Dameron. I'm far too attached to my work to go chasing after you. Your biggest risk from this liaison is occasional rambling comms about nocturnal vs diurnal migration patterns in family groups." 

Poe blinked. "I…would not mind that," he said, honestly realizing he wouldn't. "I wouldn't understand it, but I wouldn't mind it. We put in all this effort, I'd like to know how the foxes are doing. One thing, first," he said, holding up a finger to forestall any further movement. 

She raised an eyebrow at him, starting to look impatient. 

"My name is Poe," he said with a grin. "And you are?" 

Dr. Kaer burst out laughing. "Zivya. You can call me Zivya. Now get back over here and kiss me some more," she ordered. 

"Yes, ma'am," Poe said with a grin, and did exactly that. 

##### Acknowledgements
    
    
    Many thanks to the Society of Unique Ecologies for providing a generous grant toward mapping Crait's ecosystem in general and the vulpes crystallum in particular. I hope this knowledge helps inform future studies into the unique interplay of geology and biology. 
    
    A further thanks is given to JK, IpL, and WE, for the engineering expertise volunteered, as noted in the methodology section, year four. 
    
    And last, a more personal thanks to PD. Thank you for believing in the importance of seeking knowledge, and thank you for listening to me.

**Author's Note:**

> And then at some point Poe comes back to Crait during their birthing season and sees a bunch of Crystal Fox kits and has a lot of emotions. He and Zivya get drunk together and spend a lot of time rambling about how sometimes you save the big things, and sometimes you save the little ones, but in a lot of ways, the little ones ARE the big ones, if you know what I mean.


End file.
